Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-11-13
TEA AND COFFEE.
PACTs FOR LOVERS OF THE CHEERING LEAF
AND FRAGRANT BERRY.
Their Relative COnsumptOn-India is a Rival to
China in the Production Of Tsa-The First
Coffee House in London and Old
Pspys' First Cup Of Tea.
LOndOI Telegraph.

There is always something interesting
in facts and figures about tea, that useful
sister of the proud and ornamental camelia
plant. that luxury of the richest and so
lace of the poorest. The Commission
ers of Customs have just given us a batch
of them, showing that, in the long rivalry
between tea and coffee, the former Is win
ming the race of popularity and becoming
year by year more widely consumed and
more financially important to the Chan
cellor of the Exchequer and to commerce.
For some reason, not easy to determine,
the fragrant 'berry of Mocha" Is
gradually but evidently declln-
ing in favor. The gross amount
collected on coffee for the last ten years
haze been mainly moving in a downward
direction. The bulk of consumption for
the year ending December 81, 1873, was
81, 256, 016 pounds, showing a demand per
head of the population of .96l pounds,
The gross consumption for the year down
to December 3lst last was 3l,6O8.3O4
pounds, showing q sale per head OF the
population of SCI pounds, a decrease per
head OF 100 pounds, or at the rate oil l0.4
per head.
While the receipts from coffee, however,
prove a substantial diminution, those from
chicory fairly keep pace with the increase
of population, a sinister piece OF statistics
which goes TO demonstrate that adultera-
ton NAV have much to Go with the appa-
rent decline of coffee. Why, indeed,
should the wholesome and aromatic
infusion, which properly made, is so
restorative and digestive, become less in
vogue if it be not either that the mass OF
the people fail to get good coffee, or are
not supplied with it brewed in the proper
manner? Probably both causes are at
work against the berry which the Prophet
would wisely have blessed and recommend
ed in the Koran if he had lived to taste it.
Coffee receives very scant justice from
Western cooks. In the East they would
be scandalized to think of persons so lg-
norant as not only to waste but actually to
grind it weeks and months before using.
The delicious flavor Of the tinjan in Tur-
kew, or Egypt, or Syria is due to the sim
ole fact that the aromatic oils Of the ker-
mel are brought out by heat the moment
of consumption, and that the cafedii scorns
to mingle the vulgar imitation Of chicory,
or the viler produce of burnt beans, with
that cup which the Arab fondly calls,
''The Bride of the Pine"
The chief virtue of coffee-the way in
which it preserves indefinitely the subtle
odors and favors gathered in the tropical
sunshine, but once pulverized quickly
parts with them-is against its use. The
public must have something extremely
convenient in respect of its meats, drinks,
lighting and everything else. Eggs are so
universally employed because they are the
very epigrams of food, cOndensing nOur-
ishment in the most portable and available
form. Gas, which ought to have been
abolished long ago in favor of the
electric lamp, held its own because
of its fatally obvious hardness
as an illuminant. So tea out
does coffee in popularity, because it yields
its best result with so little trouble or pre-
caution; for, if the leaf is good at first, it is
only necessary to keep it well closed from
the air to have as good 4 bowl as the Em-
press of China could desire. The pale green
berry, however, ought to be roasted and
broken and ground every time a real cup
of coffee is required, which rule is seldom
or ever observed. The consequence is the
administration of Door decoctions, which
might make Mr.. Nathaniel Campus, the
Cretau, who first brewed the true beverage
al Balliol College, Oxford, rise from his
grave to protest.
Strange, indeed, it is to reflect that the
West has only known coffee since 1910 A.
D.: and the earliest coffee house in London
was opened by Edwards, the Turkey mer-
cbaut, at Georgeyard, Lombard street, IN
1862 A. d. Now far and wide, in climates
fit for it, grows the beautiful coffee bush,
with its creamy flowers and scarlet Cher
ries," and glossy dark green leaves; since
even here o pound per head of the pOpnla-
ton implies q considerable cultivation,
and abroad, wherever the narghileh, the
hookah, the cigar, cigarette, or pipe
weave their light blue tangles in the
sum-" there coffee is the indispensable COM
panion of the weed.
Tea, meanwhile, Notwithstanding occa-
sional protests from doctors and deans
against its alleged nerye.exciting qualities,
grows teadfastly in use among us. The
Commissioners of Customs informs us that
taking the anne years for comparison, in
1915 the bulk consumption amounted to
Isl, 274, S25 pounds, equal to a demand of
4 50 pound per head Of the population;
weile in 1856 the bulk consumption
amounted to 17S, 9O9, S8l pounds, equal to
a sale of 4.s7 pounds per head of
the population, an increase of 0.35
pound, or at the rate of ~ per cent. Here,
again, is a most marvellous development of
an experiment in commerce, for in 1869
the East India Company timidly instructed
its agent at Calcutta Ito buy for 40 shil-
lings the best tay you can gett," and old
Pepys records how he drank his first cup
of it with all the complacent selE:gloriica-
ton which that primeval gourmet must
have exhibited who swallowed the first
oyster.
Tea is tremendously historical; il sepa-
rated the United States from England, but,
although everybody knows haw the tea tax
led to the American rebellion, few are
aware that the tax was voted by the
m6TeSI aCClucnG III the 1OuSe OF commons.
Tea will become more historical still, for
it seems destined to reverse the places of
India and China, and, with the wheat and
jute trade, to pour new rivers of wealth
into the Queens Eastern dominions.
Hindostan is rapidly gaining upon China
as our source of supply. In 1870 China
and Hong Kong supplied %eighty-four per
cent of our total ~importations of tea,
and India and Ceylon fifteen per cent
while last year the proportions
were sixty.three and thirty-fve per cent.
This is not altogether, say her Maiesty's
Commissioners. to the advantage Of the
revenue, as the teas from India being
stronger than those from China, q smaller
quantity of them goes as far for the same
purpose as a larger quantity of teas from
the latter country. But who cares a pinch
of Bohea for Treasury officials when such
things are at stake as the welfare of India,
and the brewing Of a really coed afternoon
cup? Indian tea are almost always pre-
pared with scrupulous honesty of manu-
~faeture, which is more than can be said of
those sent from the Celestial Kingdom,
although, with the low duty at present
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